1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a combination protection room or shelter against the action of heat, water and steam or gas under pressure, and magnetic and electric fields in the medium to super-high frequency range.
2. Prior Art
In the past, certain advances have been made in the fire protection field relative to fire protection rooms in which it is possible to walk and in which particular data carriers can be stored, e.g., EP 85730092.5. In the known fire protection room, the walls surrounding the inner area are made from several insulating layers, such as fire protection plates, gypsum or plaster board plates and/or rock fibre plates or the like, which are set up independently of one another and are self-supporting and are not mechanically interconnected. Between them is arranged a support mechanism formed from metallic profile carriers, while sheet metal elements are located on the inside.
In order to ensure adequate fire protection, also in the transition area between the inside and outside, e.g., in the vicinity of the door, special door elements have been developed (German Patent Applications P 36 40 467.5 and P 36 40 466.7), which also comprise a plurality of insulating layers and which, like the soffit surrounding the door opening, are multiply stepped and folded. The door is held on support structure located in the inner area in front of the wall, so that the load does not act on the wall or ceiling of the protection room. By means of control levers, on opening, the door first moves parallel to the door opening in the outward direction and is then pivoted round. The known door elements have an actuating mechanism, which can be operated both from the inside and from the outside. A shaft passing through the door wall is provided, which has a fire protection separation. It has been found that such known fire protection rooms with the aforementioned door elements very adequately fulfill all fire protection conditions.
Interception protection rooms are also generally known, in which a protection against the transmission of electric and magnetic fields in the radio frequency range is provided by metal shields.
However, hitherto, no protection room has been known, which is able to simultaneously satisfy the protection requirements against high temperatures and undesired heat transfers, the action of water and steam or gas and electromagnetic interference fields. The reason for this is that these three set problems require for their individual solutions in each case different materials, which are each prejudicial to the solutions of the other problems as a result of their technical and physical requirements, so that hitherto no attempt has been made to combine all three protection needs.
The problem of the present invention is therefore to provide a combination protection room, e.g., for safe working with data processing equipment, which even in the case of high external temperatures in the case of a fire does not allow an excessive temperature rise in the inner area, which is steam-tight and is simultaneously "tight" with respect to electromagnetic fields and able to combine in one structure the known solution principles of fire protection, steam tightness and electromagnetic shielding.
A combination protection room in accordance with the present invention, generally, comprises:
(a) walls made from several layers of fire protection materials, which are not interconnected and are self supporting;
(b) an internal metal envelope made from individual sheet metal elements;
(c) a fire door with a through metal plate; and
(d) a plurality of steam-gas seals disposed at transition points between the individual sheet metal elements, and between the latter and the metal plate of the fire door, the steam-gas seals being electrically and magnetically conductive and elastic.